Our first real New Jersey weekend

Just spent some time chatting over the fence with our new neighbor. Nice lady. No kids but I can tell we’ll get along just fine.

Tomorrow morning, [Eric](http://www.9to5andotherwise.com) leaves at the crack of dawn for his flight to Illinois to begin training for his new job. The girls and I are going to get manicures. The move killed my hands. It’s either wait 2 weeks to do it while they’re in camp or make it a girls-only event while Daddy is out of town. Thursday, I register Emily for school. Laini’s registration is next week.

Saturday we enjoyed celebating the Fourth of July here in West Windsor, NJ. Around 4 pm we took the 2 mile drive to the Mercer County Park where they had a little community fair. Food, games, booths. We were able to sign up for our newspaper delivery *and* we registered to vote at Jon Corizone’s campaign booth (he’s running for New Jersey Governor). I need to get up on New Jersey politics. At 7:30 pm the New Jersey Symphony Orchestra put on a wonderful performance full of Hollywood showtunes. We brought a blanket and sat on the grass and enjoyed the music. The performance ended at about 9:15 pm with fireworks. One of the best displays I’ve seen in a long time.

The only glitch was getting home. Remember I said we were about 2 miles away? Well, the fireworks ended at about 9:45 pm. The girls used the bathroom and we made it to our car by 10 pm. Eric started the engine and moved the car about 20 feet behind other cars looking to leave the park and we sat, and sat. We ended up getting home at 11:30 pm! From 2 miles away! If we knew our way around yes, it would have been better to walk. We’ll remember that for next year.

Today we slept in a bit (or at least I tried) and then spent the afternoon at the condo pool. I’ve never lived somewhere that had a pool within walking distance. We all had a great time, even though the water was a bit too cold for my liking. Came home and had showers. Eric put up a barbeque for dinner on our back porch, which is where I ended up in conversation with our next door neighbor. The whole place has a Mayberry-like feel to it. Our neighbor told me that there is little to no crime here.